| Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend |
|
| Developer(s) |
Crystal Dynamics
Nixxes (Windows, Xbox, GCN)
Buzz Monkey Software (PSP, PS2)
Human Soft (GBA, DS)
Fathammer (Mobile)
|
| Publisher(s) |
Eidos Interactive |
| Designer(s) |
Doug Church (Original Design)
Riley Cooper (Lead Designer)
Troels Brun Folmann (music)
|
| Engine |
Proprietary/Custom game engine |
| Version |
1.2 (May 10, 2006) |
| Platform(s) |
Microsoft Windows, Mobile phone, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, Xbox |
| Release date |
PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360
 April 7, 2006
 April 11, 2006
 2006 (Microsoft Windows)
PlayStation Portable
June 20, 2006
Nintendo Systems (GC, GBA, DS)
November 15, 2006 |
| Genre(s) |
Action-adventure |
| Mode(s) |
Single-player |
| Rating(s) |
ESRB: T
PEGI: 12+
OFLC: M
OFLC: PG (GBA/DS) |
| Media |
DVD, GameCube Game Disc, Steam download |
| Input methods |
Keyboard and mouse, Gamepad, Stylus |
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend is the seventh game in the Tomb Raider series. Published by Eidos Interactive, this is the first game in the series not to be handled by British-based Core Design, developed instead by British-owned U.S. studio Crystal Dynamics. The PS2, Windows, Xbox, and Xbox 360 versions were released in Europe on April 7, 2006 and in North America on April 11, 2006. The North American PSP version was released on June 20, 2006, the Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS versions were released during November 2006 and the Mobile version was released in December 2006. The Windows version was released at Singapore's Funan Digitalife Mall in 2006 and it was also made available for download to GameTap subscribers on May 31, 2007.
Story
Legend is essentially a reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise, as some significant differences to Core Design's story arcs from previous Tomb Raider games can be found.
It is revealed in various flashbacks in the game that when Lara Croft was nine years old, the plane carrying her and her mother crashed into the Himalayas, apparently leaving them as the only survivors. After taking shelter in the ruins of an ancient temple, Lara discovered an ornate stone dais holding a sword whilst searching for firewood. Unwittingly activating the ancient artifact, Lara watched in horror as her mother vanished in front of her eyes into a portal.
Years after the plane crash, Lara, now an adult, travels to Bolivia after one of her friends, Anaya Imanu, mentions a stone dais located there. After going through a rocky path, she runs into a group of mercenaries who are under orders to attack her on sight. After killing them, she proceeds to a temple encountering more mercenaries and dangerous native wildlife along the way. On the other side of the temple, she reaches the dais and finds James Rutland, an American socialite and adventurer. Rutland mentions Amanda Evert, a friend of Lara who supposedly died, and then orders his mercenaries to attack Lara: however, Lara defeats the attackers and reaches the dais.
Lara meets Anaya at a village in Peru, and after another battle with Rutland's mercenaries, they reach the tomb in Paraíso, where a tragedy befell them years ago. A flashback sequence shows Lara on an archaeological excavation with her university colleagues, where she and Amanda witness an unknown entity kill most of the team. Amanda seemingly destroys the entity by removing a mysterious glowing stone from a wall. But this causes a cave-in that floods the cavern. Amanda is trapped under a pile of rubble, leaving Lara with no choice but to escape or drown: she fled the cavern, seemingly leaving Amanda to her death.
Excalibur reforged (left with Ghalali Key in the upper opening) and in its four pieces that were spread across the globe.
Back in the present, Lara discovers the artifact she is seeking may be linked to Excalibur -- part of the King Arthur legends -- and that Amanda survived the cave-in and is looking for the sword, which reportedly had been broken into four fragments which are now spread across the globe. Lara, now realising what she is looking for, recalls that one piece is in the 'care' of Yakuza boss Shogo Takamoto, who had it stolen from Waseda University. Lara travels to Japan, where her friend Nishimura assists her in setting up a meeting to negotiate with Takamoto for his fragment. Takamoto refuses to negotiate, claims he has no idea what she is talking about, and orders his goons to kill Lara. Lara dispatches the goons as she chases Takamoto all the way to the roof of his penthouse apartment. Takamoto uses the power of the fragment to attack Lara but she prevails and recovers it.
Lara proceeds to Ghana, where she finds Rutland again, who is also in possession of a sword fragment. She follows him into an ancient temple hidden behind a waterfall. When she reaches Rutland, he tells her about something called the Ghalali Key, believing that her father found it and it is now in Lara's possession. Lara has no idea what he was talking about and this frustrates him. Rutland then attacks her using his sword fragment but Lara subdues him and grabs the second fragment. Lara receives news from Zip and Alister that Amanda raided the Croft Manor looking for the Ghalali Key while she was in Ghana. She offers to return to the Manor to see if they are alright, but they persuade her to get to Kazakhstan as fast as she can to beat Amanda there.
When Lara arrives in Kazakhstan, she discovers that Rutland's men have taken over a Soviet lab where experiments on a sword fragment led to its closing down fifty years ago by the KGB. Lara catches up with Amanda, who is bitter about being left behind in Paraíso. Lara goes after her and finds her conducting experiments on the third sword fragment. Amanda is also using the glowing stone she pulled out of the wall in Paraíso to control the unknown entity that attacked them. Lara fights off the entity and recovers the third sword fragment.
Following a map on the back of a shield (supposedly Lancelot's) also found in the Soviet lab, Lara's search brings her home to England. She discovers the real King Arthur's tomb hidden under a tacky and now-derelict King Arthur tourist attraction in Cornwall, along with the final sword fragment. Inside the tomb, Lara discovers that after Arthur's death, three of his knights -Percival, Galahad and Bors- took fragments of the sword to locations around the world, while the final fragment was left with Arthur in the hope of resurrecting the Once and Future King. After slaying a giant sea serpent that guards the tomb, and a group of mercenaries that have followed her, Lara returns to Croft Manor to figure out how to put the four sword fragments back together.
Lara realizes that the Ghalali Key was in fact a pendant given to her mother by her father, and that her mother had it with her when their plane crashed into the Himalayas. Lara then returns to the crash site in Nepal to find the Ghalali Key. After traversing high ledges to reach the ruins of the plane, she finds the key in the wreckage, then narrowly escapes as the plane topples over the edge of a cliff. Then she goes to the temple she and her mother found after the crash. Soon Lara runs into Rutland's mercenaries, but Lara defeats them and goes into the temple to restore Excalibur. She wonders if the dais is still active, but it merely collapses when she places the sword in the stone.
Lara returns to the stone dais in Bolivia, where Amanda, Rutland and their mercenaries await. Lara uses Excalibur to kill the mercenaries and inadvertently kills Rutland as well. Amanda rushes over to him, and he dies in her arms. Lara apologizes and tries to patch up the rift with Amanda, suggesting they use the sword together. Amanda angrily refuses and releases the entity again, this time merging with it to become more powerful. With the power of Excalibur, Lara defeats the entity and separates it from Amanda.
Lara uses Excalibur on the dais to reopen the portal and discovers what happened to her mother. Lara realizes that the portal spans time and she is seeing her mother moments before she disappears. Amanda gets up and shouts at Lara to pull out the sword or it will explode. Lara's mother hears this through the portal and pulls out the sword and the dais explodes. Amanda berates Lara for her actions: however, Lara is unconcerned, furious at the realisation that Amanda was the one who 'killed' her mother across time.
Lara fires a hail of bullets around Amanda, threatening her with death if she doesn't answer. Amanda states that her mother isn't dead, but in Avalon, where Amanda herself wanted to go. Amanda also says that since Lara would not believe her, she is wasting her breath. Lara knocks Amanda out with her pistol, snarling that, "From this moment, your every breath is a gift from me". The game ends as Lara, determined to find answers, tells Zip and Alister they still have much work ahead of them.
Locations
Lara climbing a cliff in Ghana.
The locations of Lara's seventh adventure are in order of play:
- Tiwanaku, Bolivia - A pre-Incan civilization currently in ruins. Lara arrives there after her friend Anaya Imanu mentions about a stone dais. Lara goes through rocky ledges and ruins to find this dais. She also meets James Rutland.
- Paraíso, Peru - Lara meets her friend, Anaya, in the town square, but they soon find themselves under fire by Rutland's mercenaries. After the attack, she takes a motorbike to the old ruins in Peru, where when she was in that ruin, an unknown creature attacked her and other archeologist students. She goes in the ruins to find out if one of her old friends, Amanda Evert, is really dead.
- Tokyo, Japan - A piece of the sword, stolen from Waseda University, is in the hands of a Yakuza boss and Lara intends to acquire it. Lara arrives at a corporate party, then traverses the rooftops of Tokyo to get to the boss's penthouse.
- Ghana, Africa - Another piece of the sword is with James Rutland, in Ghana. Lara discovers a temple hidden in the waterfalls. She also finds her mothers lost pendant. At the end, she fights James Rutland in a boss battle, but spares his life.
- Kazakhstan - Lara's search brings her to an abandoned secret KGB testing facility where experiments with the sword fragment led to disaster. This level features another motorbike chase sequence, with Lara racing alongside a train, and ultimately jumping on to it on the motorbike.
- Cornwall, England - "As in take the M5 to the A30 Cornwall?" asks Lara dubiously. Lara investigates an abandoned tacky King Arthur tourist attraction and unearths the catacombs beneath it which is home to an enormous sea serpent.
- Himalayas, Nepal - The artefact that can re-forge Excalibur lies in the plane wreck Lara and her mother survived. Lara scales the snowy Himalayan heights and revisits the crumbling Buddhist monastery where her mother disappeared.
- Bolivia Redux - The final confrontation takes place between Lara and Amanda, and the truth is revealed about Amelia Croft's death.
- Croft Manor (training level), England - Croft Manor contains a number of puzzles in the form of hidden passageways, lyrical codes and concealed switches. This level can be played at anytime for as long as the player wishes - however the first level, Bolivia, must be completed to unlock the doors of the manor.
Characters
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Voice cast
Versions
Following the success of Lego Star Wars: The Video Game on the Nintendo GameCube, Eidos announced their decision to port Tomb Raider: Legend to that platform, marking Lara Croft's first appearance on a home Nintendo console[1]. Legend is also the first game in the series available on a Microsoft console: Xbox (and later on the Xbox 360).
Differences between versions
The original Xbox version does not include the introduction movie with the opening titles. According to Xboxic,[2] the manager of the Xbox development team genuinely forgot to include the intro video on the final build disc when sending it off for the final game testing with Microsoft's Quality Assurance team. When the mistake was discovered, the QA department told Eidos they would need to resubmit the game for re-testing from scratch. Due to time restrictions, Eidos chose to release the Xbox version without the intro movie.
PlayStation Portable players have received some exclusive extras. While the textures and polygon count were significantly reduced to run on the portable, some new gameplay modes were introduced. The Tomb Trials, three multiplayer modes and six additional outfits were not available in any other version of Legend. The Tomb Trials put the player against a series of traps and acrobatics to be dealt with before the assigned time is over, based on locations of the regular levels. Note: On the last level "Bolivia redux" the "Natla industries" crates are not present, and you can not destroy the statues scattered around the level.
The Nintendo GameCube version has had a couple of cuts, most likely due to disc space. The rolling demos that would normally play if the game was left inactive while in the title screen have been removed, and the Unfortunate Mishaps video is also missing. The game runs at a slightly smoother framerate than the PlayStation 2 version, and it also loads faster. But at some specific points there are some noticeable frame rate drops (such as in the train chase, in Kazakhstan). The many filters used for explosions and motion blur are also gone, rendering the game with sharper textures but less remarkable explosions. It was also released in November 24 of 2006, curiously, 5 days after the release of Nintendo's next gen console, the Wii.
The versions for Nintendo handheld consoles are different. Despite following the same storyline and featuring all the levels and key moments from the bigger counterparts, the game is a sidescroller on the GBA. The levels have been broken down into several smaller segments, probably due to technology limits, and feature a lot more platforming than the original versions. The progression of the storyline is told via comic-strips during key moments. The rewards are also present and they unlock simple minigames. Lara also changes outfits in this version, though she's limited to only three - the regular outfit, the Tokyo dress and the Winter suit.
The PC and Xbox 360 version includes exclusive "next generation effects", which can be toggled on the PC version. When the next gen effects are off, the game is visually identical to the PlayStation2 and GameCube versions of the game.
The Mobile version presents a compressed version of the story, featuring only three levels (Tokyo, Ghana and England) based on the original levels from the console versions, and has a far more limited gameplay style. It features, however, three gameplay modes: Corridor Combat, Room Combat and Platform Exploration.
Demo
The PlayStation 2 demo was made available in some regions in the Official PlayStation Magazine, as well as on Jampack Vol. 14. A PC demo was released on March 31, 2006 and an Xbox 360 demo was released on Xbox Live Marketplace on April 5, 2006. A downloadable demo was available for the Nintendo DS via the DS Download Station for a short time.
Reception
| Tomb Raider: Legend Reviews |
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| Awards |
| Most Improved Sequel award on the Best and Worst Awards, and a nominee of the Best GameCube game category. |
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Tomb Raider: Legend was released to widely positive reviews by the media and from many Lara Croft fans. Many herald it as a tribute to the classic gameplay of the original 1996 Tomb Raider. That said, the game was on the whole a commercial success leading to a re-envisioning of the original game with new gameplay (Anniversary).
- The game topped the UK game charts at number 1 and remained there for three weeks. [5]
- As of June 30, 2006, the game has sold over 2.9 million copies worldwide,[6] has become the fastest selling Tomb Raider game in the series and has helped the series sell over 30 million units.
Music
Music info table
| Data |
Info |
| General mood |
Gaelic ,
Modern
|
| Main composer |
Troels Brun Folmann |
| Main theme |
2 minutes and 20 seconds |
| In-game score |
88 tracks/4 hours |
| Average track length |
2 minutes and 35 seconds |
Legend is the longest score of the series. It took 9 months for the composing process of 4 and a half hours of music (which includes the cinematic scores as well as some tracks that were never used in the game). As a result, the Legend in-game music is very loud in comparison to all other games, meaning that the music is always on and there is less silence than other games.
The 7th game of the series plays a new kind of music that changes after the actions of Lara. Most of the music is alternative. The alternative genre was already used before for the trials of each game and often in the game. Even the movie dedicated a major part of its soundtrack to the this kind of genre. Sometimes the music has small parts of electronic-like orchestra, just like Peter Connelly used to compose for TR4 and TR5, but now instead of recreating the atmosphere of a real orchestra, Troels uses lot of echoes for the orchestral sounds.
Legend's title track starts off with the first few notes of Lara's original theme used in all of the games before this one. Being played with slight ornamentation on a Middle-Eastern duduk. As this was the first Tomb Raider game made by the enthusiastic Crystal Dynamics, the team were slightly oblivious to the existence of the Tomb Raider Anthem, the theme is heard several times during game-play, mostly as a background motif or in a three-note repeating motif that was used sometimes in previous Tomb Raider game soundtracks. The tune and the lyrics to the main theme and other musical cues in the game are from a Gaelic folk song named Ailein duinn by Capercaillie.
In 2006 Troels Folmann was awarded a BAFTA in the category [7], 'Best original Score' and the GANG award, 'Music of the Year'.
Trivia
- On the unlockable costume Goth, the symbols on Lara's vest and belt buckle are from another Crystal Dynamics/Eidos series, Legacy of Kain. They are the symbols for Raziel and Kain's respective clans. Also, in the main hall of Croft Manor, a painting can be seen of the human Kain, the same one that Raziel sees in Kain's Mausoleum in Defiance. Lara's blue sport outfit uses the Soul Reaver symbol of the sound glyph on the shoes. The unlockable Soul Reaver weapon is also a nod to these games.
- The main hall of Croft Manor is nearly identical in layout and ornamentation to its counterpart in the first movie.
- In the last level, Bolivia Redux, the crates bear the Natla Industries logo. Jacqueline Natla was the main enemy in the original game, and Natla Technologies was her company.
References
External links
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